Thursday, 29 December 2016

Coin minted by Brutus to mark the assassination of Julius Caesar (on the ides of March)

As part of my review of the year I have been spending some time looking at dates on my fast-filling diary for 2017. I am using my Outlook calendar for lightweight-travel sake, but with my visual wiring, I do prefer a real live wall calendar, preferably with boxes I can write in.

Thinking about calendars, looking at 50% off calendars in the shops and practicing my high school Latin (!) by deciphering the mottos on the Harrow School crest on my walk yesterday all converged. This morning I had a eureka moment. OMG, only just realised! (after all these years, lol) Calendar comes from kalends: the first day of a Roman month. We all know about the ides of March, from Shakespeare, don't we? (translated as 15 March)

In the Roman year the days of the month were denoted by reference to the kalends, ides or nones which were the first day of the month, the middle of the month and eight days before the ides respectively. The dates were set by counting back from the next named reference day. So today would be 4 days before the kalends of January.

As I tell my kids: I may not pick up on it at first, but I always work it out in the end.

Wednesday, 28 December 2016

I have been a follower of Chris Guillebeau's blog, the Art of Non-Conformity for many years. Each year at this time he conducts an annual review, and this year I am going follow along with his procedure in this outline post. The aim is to not make resolutions, but rather a personalised plan of action for 2017.

He recommends first making a pen and paper list of what worked well and what didn't work so well in the past year. So that is what I am working on today. And as he notes, from my initial thoughts that "not much happened in 2016" it is amazing what I have achieved when I spend some time to think about it.

* New Zealand connection: Resolution was Captain James Cook's ship on his second and third voyages of discovery. On both trips he visited New Zealand

Monday, 26 December 2016

As Christmas day approached I was reminded of some fun facts my German cousin Annegret taught me. I visited her in Frankfurt two years ago in the run up to Christmas. She introduced me to a couple of traditional German TV programmes for the festive season. One is watching "Sissi" a highly romanticised story of the courtship of Emperor Franz Josef I*and Princess Elizabeth. Empress Elizabeth, as she became, was a fascinating but quite mentally unstable woman (in my opinion) and this film was a large part of her mythmaking. Elizabeth was born the year that Victoria came to the throne. There are some interesting parallels between her story and that of the late, lamented Diana, Princess of Wales

The other TV tradition is watching "Dinner for One" a short black and white film, in English. More properly watched on Silvester (New Years Eve), it has become a German tradition to watch in the festive season. People have put theories forward on why it has become a cult classic in Germany, while remaining unknown in English-speaking countries, but essentially it is a mystery.

This article gives you a bit more background (and a better quality video: skip the first 2 1/2 minutes if you want to miss the German intro)

The scenario seems poignantly relevant for me this year as I spent Christmas Day (and every other day of the holidays) with my elderly client, in my current role as live-in carer. Christmas Day was just her, me, and the turkey. Unlike the film, no alcohol was involved.
a. because I was working, and
b. because this is a teetotal home.

I have been working as a relief live-in carer for the past 4 months, and it certainly raises some talking points about a slew of topics. I'll be discussing some of them with my family when we celebrate a very belated Christmas when I am back home in February 2017.

Thursday, 22 December 2016

A butt is an obsolete unit of liquid measurement in Britain. A butt is 126 wine gallons. Wine gallons? yes it is a thing, and explains another of those bizarre American differences. The American gallon is based on the old wine gallon measurement.

It sometimes seems that what ever measurement standard the rest of the world choses, America has to be different. So an American gallon is different from an imperial gallon: another reason why American recipes can be difficult to follow successfully. (that and "stick of butter". What kind of a measurement unit is a stick? Tablespoons of butter for something that normally comes in solid form is bad enough! ...mini rant over) Anyway an American gallon is based on cubic inches (231 cubic inches) while an imperial gallon is rounded to 4.54 litres. This means that an American gallon at a nominal 3.785l is considerably less than an imperial gallon. One of the reasons for that the Americans stuck with the old gallon measure is that the British imperial system was not adopted until 1825, by which time America had ceased to be a colony.

Butt may be archaic as a measurement, but it lives on in the names of British pubs, as does tun. A tun is equivalent to two butts. So we have pubs such as The Three Tuns in Henley,

or the Half Butt in Essex

Oh, and for another blindingly obvious fact (that I only recently realised) a quart is a quarter of a gallon.

Tomorrow I am going to continue the theme with old wines and Shakespeare. Then on Saturday I am looking forward celebrating Christmas Eve with more recent vintage wine and Shakespeare,. But more of that anon.

Tuesday, 20 December 2016

Important fact at the outset: wine gums don't actually contain wine. But this British brand does have the names of wine (and spirit) varieties impressed into them, as well as having an assortment of shapes. Kiwi wine gums are just one shape, a squat cylinder, in a variety of colours/flavours. Now I have some inkling of how wine gums came by their misleading name.

Seeing the name on one of the wines got the wheels of my brain turning clunkily. I knew Hock was a generic name for white wine, probably from some past literary exposure. That or exposure to poor generic white wine in New Zealand of the 1970's. But why? Turns out Hock comes from Hochheim, from Hochheim am Main. Hochheim was the centre of the wine export to Britain for German wines from the 17 century. So Hock became a common term for German white wine. If it is used nowadays, it usually implies low quality white wine.

A similar and even more antiquated name for white wine from Germany is Rhenish. We see it cropping up in Shakespeare in Hamlet:

"as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,

The Kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out

The triumph of his pledge"

and in The Merchant of Venice:

"There is more difference between thy flesh and hers than
between jet and ivory; more between your bloods than there is
between red wine and Rhenish."

I had never made the connection that Rhenish wine refers to wine from the Rhine area: specifically Rheinhessen, the area between Worms and Bingen. Must go back and sample more wine: I wonder if it used to drunk from Westerwald stoneware?

Sunday, 18 December 2016

As I was writing yesterday's post I noticed the wald of Westerwald is German for forest. Of course I knew that : Schwartzwald Kirschentorte means Black Forest Cherry Cake. As I said to my sister Jane before I travelled to Germany: " I know a few German words: from cookery and Opera" to which she wryly replied "that will be very useful in everyday conversation!"

Any way, I am currently living close to Harrow Weald and I have been wondering about the meaning of weald, but hadn't yet got around to looking it up. There is also the Weald of Kent which one of my clients referred as his vantage point when watching V-1 flying bombs falling on London as a boy.

Time to look it up: turns out that weald comes from West Saxon, and means the same as "wold" which is the Anglian form. So yes, from the same root as the German "wald" Harrow Weald was once part of the ancient Forest of Middlesex.

Saturday, 17 December 2016

My photo storage program kindly reminded me that its two years since I first met up with my German cousins in Pottum. How is this connected with a restored chamberpot from the lost palace of Greenwich?

Greenwich Visitors Centre 2016

The caption suggests it (#3) is from mid 18th century

Pottum is my great great grandmother's Susannah Schamp's hometown. She
left Germany in a time of great political and social turmoil, 1847, for the
uncertain life of a folk musician in England. In a tale stranger than
fiction she ended up the pillar of respectability in an Australian goldrush
town. But that is a story for another day.

Through the magic of the internet I linked up with Annegret Held, an author
living in Frankfurt, but originally from Pottum. Annegret has since written a novel inspired by this era, "Armut ist ein brennend Hemd" which translates as "Hunger is a Burning Shirt". She and my distant Schamp
relatives were my hosts on my visit in December 2014. I was there for the
village Christmas party, and I felt like an honoured guest. I even received the
crest of the village from the deputy mayor in an informal ceremony by the
lake the next morning.

At Pottum, with Annegret, the deputy mayor, and the Schamp family

One of the gifts the Schamps gave me was a teacup and saucer in Westerwald
pottery. They told me the Westerwald area is known for a particular style of pottery, blue patterned on a grey ground. It is stoneware fired at a very high temperature, and the cobalt blue glaze is the only colour that will endure that temperature. Later they took me a place selling regional produce and I was
able to buy a mould, also in westerwald ware, for making another regional speciality, Westerwälder
Eierkäse. (these are safely packed away in New Zealand, so pictures will have
to wait: be patient!)

So how surprised was I to recognise a westerwald chamberpot on display
when I visited the Greenwich Visitor Centre. The Greenwich complex of buildings
are marvellous and historic, but they are built over an older palace site. The
original medieval palace was rebuilt by Henry VII and named the Palace of Placentia. It became a favourite royal residence, and three Tudor rulers
were born here: Henry VIII, Mary I and Elizabeth I. Placentia was in a state of disrepair by the time of the Restoration, and none of the original palace now remains. The chamberpot on display was discovered with other treasures when drains were being laid in 2005.

Apparently stoneware from Westerwald was imported to England in great
quantities in the past, particularly as tankards and chamberpots, and frequently shards are found in the mud of the
Thames. I found more information on this Mudlarking blog.
I also plan to visit the Museum of London, another free London museum, which has a special feature on this pottery.

Friday, 16 December 2016

One of my sons has requested a DNA analysis for his
Christmas present: he is interested in optimising his health and diet based on
his genetic profile. It’s a bonus for me too, family history-wise. In advance
of getting his results I thought it was time to revisit his father’s side of
the family tree. This has lain untouched for many a year, as I was daunted by
the challenges of genealogical research in Ireland. All those similar names and
so many holes in the records (I believe it’s true the archival stacks were used
as barriers during the Easter rising)

But time can still be the genealogist’s friend, as more and
more records, both public and private become digitised and available through
the magic of the internet.

And sure enough, there is a wealth of records available
since the last time I looked.

I found one of his father’s great uncles served in the
British Army during the so-called Great War. (also erroneously called “the War
to End all Wars”) His name was James Greenlee, born in Belfast in 1887. His immediately
elder sister, Annie went on to marry Arthur Power, and become my sons’ Great
grandparents.

In the 1901 census the Greenlee family were living in Upper
Newtonards Rd and James, aged 14 was working as a rope maker, while his father
William was a hemp dresser. Ten years later James was newly-wed, living with
his wife Mary in Manderson St and working as an iron driller. Belfast was a
major centre for ship building, and ropemaking and iron working were part of
the industrial package. The Power family later settled in Dee St, which is also
in the heart of this shipbuilding area, now named the Titanic quarter, after
its most famous ship. Robert Power (Bob) my son’s grandfather worked at Harland
and Wolff and was part of the team to build HMS Belfast, now permanently
berthed in London.

But back to James. Like so many young men from throughout
the Empire, he enlisted to fight in WWI. James was an Irish Guardsman. Irish
Guards wear the iconic dress uniform of red tunic and bearskin (never call it a
busby, I was once cautioned by a Coldstream Guard.) The uniform is differenced
from other Foot Guards by the chest buttons arranged in groups of four, and a
blue plume in the bearskin.

You will be familiar with the officer’s dress
uniform: Prince William was married in that uniform, as he is Colonel of the
Regiment.

One of the coolest things I learned about the Irish Guards was their mascot: a real live Irish Wolfhound!

Now that is a real dog!

And as I am not one to miss the opportunity to show a video of men in uniform playing brass instruments, or men in kilts playing bagpipes, here is a video of the Irish Guards with their pipes and drums. Yes, Irish kilts are a thing!

The Irish Guards served on the Western Front for the duration
of the First World War, suffering heavy losses. One of those men was James. He
left behind a young wife, Mary: I am not sure if they had children. He is buried
at Bleuet Farm west of Ieper (Ypres) and his name is engraved there and on a
memorial tablet in St Patricks Church, Belfast. I don’t know yet the details of
his death, but his digitised army will can be viewed online, and shows damage
that looks suspiciously like blood stains. The date of his death was 26 July 1917. It gives you pause to think.

In 2017 I will be visiting the battlefields of Northern
France and Flanders, and James’ name will be on the list of those I remember.

Thursday, 15 December 2016

Motivated by a youtube video, Christine Tarrant suggested we should have birthday party for Garth when I am back in NZ (February-March 2017). Chris and my son Richard are looking after my dog Garth while I am on my extended gap year. We call Garth the wonder dog, (and Garthalicious, Garthicus and a few other names too saccharine to be owned to!) and he is definitely worthy of a story or two, and definitely a write-up in a veterinarian journal. But that's a story for another day.

I decided to research to find a suitable day. As Garth is a rescue dog, we don't even know his age for sure, let alone his real birthday. Although thinking about it, next March will be the tenth anniversary of welcoming Garth into our lives as a fully grown but still knawing dog.

The first thing I looked for was a patron saint of dogs. I guess St Francis would work as a general animal lover too. His feast day is 4 October. But yes, there is a specific patron saint for dogs: St Rochus, Roch, Rocco or Rock, depending on your language preference. I bet you have never heard of him. I didn't think I had either, until I remembered that Rochusgasse was one of the stops I used on the Vienna underground. Of course the church the street is named for the church dedicated to St Rochus, patron saint of dogs and ... invoked against the plague. Traditionally he is portrayed displaying the plague buboe on his thigh, along with the dog who brought him bread (must be a retriever) when he was cast out for his infection. His feast day is August 16, appropriately enough in the dog days of a European summer. But not a useful date for me either with my tickets booked to return to UK by end of March.

St Roque by Francisco Ribalta

The Viennese church I am familiar with from the street was built in 1643 by Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III in gratitude for the preservation of Vienna from the plague. Unfortunately the intercession of St Rochus was not so effective in 1679 and 1713 when Vienna suffered devastating epidemics.

So far I have not come up with a suitable date that falls in the appropriate time, but whatever day we choose it will be a great party... now to think about themed cocktails for the guests. Suggestions welcomed.

Wednesday, 14 December 2016

Following up to yesterday’s post, it’s hard to know which
avenue to explore first. I could tell you about the ancient forester rights for
the Forest of Dean, and how these were eroded in the aftermath of the Napoleonic
Wars by the navy’s need for oak. I could talk about the Dean Forest Riots and
punishment by transportation to van Dieman’s Land. I could discuss the social
changes that drove whole families to move away from their places of origin. We
could take a little diversion to the whims of Regency aristocracy and the work
of the Kymin Club. More on Horatio Nelson and naval battles. Life in service at
a “big house” and the estates of the Dukes of Beaufort. Jumping back in time a
whole lot more I could digress to Henry V and other famous people of Monmouth, Agincourt
and Welsh archers, Shakespeare and forging national identity, knitting in the
14th century.

And of course, more personal family history: the Barnetts in
Le Bons Bay including the hellfire Welsh preacher (I wish we had audio
recordings! Imagine that accent!), the Evans in Wairarapa, and initial
responses to DNA testing. Oh and of course I want to find out more about Edward Barnett and his family.

Believe it or not, all these disparate subjects are linked
to yesterday’s post! Wow, and I managed to mention Shakespeare and Nelson in the
course of conversation again. Why not comment and help me decide which area to
pick first!

Tuesday, 13 December 2016

When I first visited the UK, in 1987, one of the places that
I was very keen to visit was Monmouth. Why? Not only was it the birthplace of
Henry V, immortalised by Shakespeare and kept alive by my Bardophile
English-teacher mother, but also of my mother’s slightly less illustrious Evans
antecedants.

Monmouth is right on the border with England, but I was
emphatically assured that it is in Wales. This was at the time that I was
really launching into family history research. Need I remind you: pre-internet.
I would scan the migraine-inducing microfiche at booked sessions at the local
Mormon temple (Royal Oak) and send my findings to my sister Jane, who was on
her OE in UK. She would then use that information to check out the archives at
the regional Public Record Office. Very time consuming and expensive to order
certificates. And everything done by snail mail. Even I have trouble imagining
it, and it happened to me!

Research in the 60’s by my Auntie Thyra had confirmed my
great grandparents Oliver and Sarah Evans nee Barnett were originally from
Monmouth. They travelled to New Zealand in 1876 on the Inverness. They arrived
29 October 1876, docking in Napier after a voyage from London which had taken
just over three months. The Inverness was one of the smaller ships to arrive
that year, only 725 tons. With them were Bill and Charlie, their infant sons.
The family then travelled by land to settle initially at Le Bons Bay on the
Banks Peninsular, where Sarah’s brother James and paternal uncles Edwin and
Henry were already established as early settlers. My grandfather John Evans was
born in Christchurch (1890) sometime before the family moved to Rongomai,
Wairarapa where the youngest member of the family, Maud, was born in 1893.

Based on this groundwork we discovered that both the Evans and
Barnetts lived on The Kymin in the first half of the 19th century. Kymin
Hill is a beautiful area just over the river Wye, to the east of Monmouth. It is said that on a clear day eight counties
can be seen from the summit. The settlement at the base of the hill is Dixton.
Dixton appears in the censuses as Dixton Newton and Dixton Hadnock. They are
the two original manors, on the west and east sides of the river
respectively.Just a little further east
is the border with England and the ancient Forest of Dean.

When my mother Audrey was on her OE circa 1957, she had
visited the area and unsuccessfully tried to find records of her grandparents’
marriage at the parish church. Of course, we realise now that as Non-conformists,
in this case Baptists, their records were kept separately. There are further
challenges locating records, as in this area the three counties of Monmouth,
Herefordshire and Gloucestershire converge. Add to that, travel a mile or so
and you are changing from England to Wales. Makes it hard to know which records
to check. And most confusingly, our families’ local parish church of St Peters,
although physically in Monmouth is part of the diocese of Hereford.

The church is ancient and attractive, on the banks of the
Wye, and in Dixton Newton: the western side. Our families would have had to cross the river
to attend church on, and we know the river is prone to
flooding: a fact attested by the brass markers in the church showing historic
high water marks. In fact, a description of the church from 1851 comments on
the inconvenient siting of the church (on an unrelated note, all services were
in English) I believe there was a ferry crossing in this era. When I visited
the church in 1989 it was being prepared for a wedding and looked lovely with
the whitewashed walls, stained glass and bridal flowers.

My Great Grandmother Sarah Evans nee Barnett c 1920

My great grandmother Sarah, born 1849, was the eldest child
of Betsy (nee Tomkins) and James Barnett. She was baptised in this church. Her father James was a woodsman and the 1851
census shows him living with his wife and child (Sarah) at Dixton Hadnock, in close to
proximity to his brothers’ families. After Sarah, sons James and Edward
followed, but by 1853, James Snr was dead, dying before the birth of Edward in
December of that year.

Young Edward appears in the 1861 census for Dixton Newton
living with his widowed mother and siblings, but by 1871 census the family has
dispersed. I believe Sarah was living in as a servant, but haven’t confirmed
the location. James had emigrated the previous year to New Zealand. No trace of
Betsy (who may have died) or young Edward. Over the years, I have collected
information on an Edward Barnett, but have never been able to verify the
connection… until now. It was difficult to track him, because his entire
Barnett family had died or emigrated, and Edward had no remaining links to Monmouth.
While the Edward working as an assistant warder at Swansea Prison in 1891 gave
his birthplace as Dixton, I wasn’t 100% certain this was my long lost great
great uncle… until now!

What I had found was a man who was absent from the censuses
of 1871 and 1881 and then shows up marrying in Plymouth (1882) and has children
born in Ireland, Gibraltar, Swansea and Plymouth, before ending up in Greenwich
as a customs watcher. These locations and occupations immediately suggested
that he was probably formerly in the Navy. Both prison warder and customs
watcher* jobs were commonly held by retired servicemen.

Obviously more research can be done, and I plan to spend
time at the National Archive, Kew when I am dogsitting In South Ealing Easter
2017. But already I have proved the link through the modern wonders of DNA
analysis. I recently submitted my saliva sample to Ancestry DNA and the results
came back suggesting that a woman in Canada was my third cousin via Edward
Barnett! We have made contact, and part of my reason for writing about the
Barnetts today is to give her some background to what I know about the family.
I am looking forward to learning her story of how her family ended up in Canada
and what she knows of her great grandfather.

* Watcher [later re titled as Revenue Assistants and Revenue
Constables] would tally cargo being unloaded from a ship or goods being
transferred into /out of a bonded warehouse or the King's Warehouse and were on
a weekly wage. [http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=757809.9]